The Gates of Sleep em-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Thank you, Madam,” Marina said, lowering her eyes to her plate—which was promptly whisked away. Not that she minded; this course looked like chopped pasteboard and mayonnaise, and tasted about the same. She had figured out by now that there were no more than two or three dishes in a meal that she found palatable, and she took care to get exactly the right implements for them and to eat them quickly when they appeared. Usually she got at least half of the portions set in front of her that she wanted to eat, if she managed to maneuver bites around Madam’s mandatory polite conversation.

  That, and her hearty breakfasts and midnight feasts supplied by Sally, kept her from feeling as if she was going to starve to death any time soon. Perhaps when spring and summer arrived, she could convince her aunt to let her have picnic luncheons or teas out of doors.

  But I suppose that will only happen if they’re in fashion.

  “What was that telegraph about, that you ran off so quickly today?” Arachne asked her son, who was eating his portion of the next course with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

  “Another one of the paintresses left the Okehampton works—or, as their foreman said, ‘disappeared,’“ he said, setting his fork aside. “That’s two this week, and there’s been some talk that somehow we’re responsible for the disappearances. The manager reckoned I’d better come deal with the talk before it got out of hand. He was right; not only did I have to talk to the girls—all of them, not just the paintresses—but every one of the shop foremen cornered me before I left. They all wanted to know if there was any truth to the talk that for some reason we’d gotten rid of her and hushed it up.”

  “Talk?” Arachne said sharply. “We’re the ones who’ve been injured! Doesn’t it occur to those people that it takes time to train a paintress? Why would we want to be rid of trained ones? It costs us time and money when one of the little ingrates decides to try her prospects elsewhere.”

  “That’s what I told them,” Reggie replied with a shrug. “And eventually they all admitted what I’d already known—” He gave a sharp glance at Marina, who was pretending great interest in her plate. “Once those girls start the easy life of a paintress, they start getting airs. You know what I mean, Mater.”

  Arachne laughed, and actually looked fully at her niece. “This, Marina, is not considered polite conversation. For one thing, it is about the inner workings of our business, and it is not polite to discuss these things in front of those who are not involved in the business themselves. For another—well, the petty lives of little factory girls with money to spend who find that they have become interesting to men are not appropriate subjects for conversation at any time.”

  “Yes, Madam,” Marina murmured.

  “However, this is something that Reginald and I must discuss, so—well, remember that this sort of thing is not to be brought up in public.”

  “Yes, Madam,” Marina agreed, softly.

  She turned back to Reggie. “Now, there has to be some reason why these foremen were convinced we had anything to do with these girls running off,” Arachne continued, fixing her son with a cool gaze. “You might as well tell me what it is.”

  Reggie groaned. “Never could get anything by you, Mater, could I? Some pesky Suffragists brought in their pet female doctor and commenced whinging about the entire painting room, especially about the paints and glazes, saying we’re poisoning the girls and that’s why they disappear. Some of the men were daft enough to listen to her.”

  “Suffragists!” Arachne’s voice rose incredulously. “What possible quarrel can they have with me? Am I not a woman? Have I not, by my own hard work and despite the machinations of men who would see me fail, turned my single manufactory into four? Do I not employ women? And at good wages, too!”

  Reggie just shrugged. “How should I know? They’re mad, that’s all. They say the lead in the glazes—the woman doctor says that the lead in the glazes—poisons the girls, makes them go mad, and we know all about it. So when they start becoming unhinged we have them taken away.”

  “Pfft!” said Arachne. “A little lead is what makes them so pretty—just like arsenic does, everyone knows that. I’ve never heard that a little lead ever did more than clear up their complexions, but now some ill-trained woman doctor says it is dangerous and—” She shrugged. “Who gave her this medical degree? No university in England, I am sure! No university in England would be so foolish as to grant a woman a medical degree!”

  “I don’t know, Mater—”

  She fixed him with an icy stare. “I trust you made it very clear to the men that these accusations are groundless and that this so-called doctor is a quack and a fraud.”

  “I made it very clear to the men that it is easy enough to replace them if they stir up trouble and spread tales, Mater,” Reggie told her, with that smirk that so annoyed Marina.

  “Well done.” Arachne thawed a trifle, and smiled. “Now we have disposed of the impolite conversation, perhaps we can discuss other things.” With no more warning than that, she turned to her niece. “Well, Marina? What shall we discuss?”

  Her mind went blank. She couldn’t remember the topics that Arachne had indicated were appropriate. “Why shouldn’t a woman be a doctor, Madam?” she asked, the first question that came into her head.

  But Arachne raised an admonitory eyebrow. “Not appropriate, child,” she replied. “That particular question comes under any number of inappropriate topics, from politics to religion. Polite conversation, if you please.”

  “Um—” She pummeled her brain frantically. “The concerts in Bath? The London opera season?”

  “Ah. The London opera season. That will do nicely.” Arachne smiled graciously. “Now, since you have never been to London, and in any case, you cannot go to the opera until you are out of mourning, what could you possibly say about the London opera season?”

  “I could—say that—ask the opinion of whomever I was with,” she said, groping after further conversation. “About the opera selections—the tenors—”

  “Very good. It is not wise to ask a gentleman about the sopranos, my dear. The gentleman in question might have an interest in one of them that has nothing to do with their vocal abilities.” She turned to Reggie. “So, what do you think of our London Faust this year? Shall I trouble to see it?”

  That gained her a respite, as mother and son discussed music—or rather, discussed the people who had come to see the music, and be seen there. Marina had only to make the occasional “yes” or “no” that agreed with their opinions. And when mother and son disagreed—she sided always with the mother.

  It seemed politic.

  The carriage rolled away from the gates of Oakhurst with Marina in it, but not alone. Mary Anne was with her, all starch and sour looks, sitting stiffly on the seat across from Marina. Just to make the maid’s day complete, Marina had taken care to get in first, so as to have the forward-facing seat, leaving Mary Anne the rearward-facing one.

  I should have expected that I wouldn’t be allowed out without my leashholder, she thought, doing her best to ignore the maid’s disgruntled glances, watching the manicured landscape roll by outside the carriage window.

  Mary Anne had not been the least little bit pleased about going to church. She didn’t even have a prayerbook—but last night, a quick raid of the schoolbook cupboard in the library had supplied a pair of not too badly abused specimens, which she presented to the seriously annoyed woman for choice. Marina, of course, had her own, with her other books, a childhood present from Sebastian, with wonderful little pen-and-ink illuminations of fish, ocean creatures, and water plants. And had it turned up missing, there would have been a confrontation…

  So here she was, everything about her in soberest black except that magnificent beaver cloak. She’d no doubt that even the cloak would have been black, had her aunt thought about it in advance, and considered that she might actually want to show her face in the village this Sunday.

  Saint Peter’s was nothing particularly outsta
nding in the way of ecclesiastical architecture—but it wasn’t hideously ugly or a jumble of added-on styles, either. And it was substantial, not a boxy little chapel with no graces and no beauty, but a good medieval church in the Perpendicular style with a square tower and a fine peal of bells, which were sounding as they drove up. It was a pity that the interior had been stripped by Cromwell’s Puritans during the Reformation, but there—the number of churches that hadn’t been could be counted on one hand, if that. It had nice vaulting, though, and though it was cold, at least she had that lovely warm beaver cape to keep her comfortable during the service. The poor young vicar looked a little blue about the nose and fingertips.

  The Roeswoods were not an old enough family to have a family pew, but Marina was shown straight up to the front and seated there, giving everyone who had already arrived a good look at her as she walked up the aisle with Mary Anne trailing behind. And of course, the entire village could regard the back of her head at their leisure all through the service.

  For the first time, Marina’s keeper was at a complete loss. Mary Anne appeared not to have set foot in a church since early childhood. Somewhat to Marina’s bemusement, she made heavy work of the service, fumbling the responses, not even knowing the tunes of the hymns. Marina could not imagine what was wrong with the girl—unless, of course, she was chapel and not church—or even of some odd sect or other like Quakers or Methodists. And Marina had the feeling that, given Arachne’s autocratic attitudes, it wouldn’t have mattered if the maid had been a devotee of the Norse god Odin and utterly opposed to setting foot in a Christian church—if Mary Anne wanted to keep her place, to church she would go every time that Marina went.

  I hope—oh, I hope she can’t ride! If she can’t ride—and I can avoid Reggie—I might be able to ride alone. Or if not alone, at least with someone who won’t be looking for my mistakes all the time.

  She even went so far as to insert that hope into her prayers.

  After the service—the organist was tolerably good, and the choir cheerful and in tune, if not outstanding—Marina remained in the pew while Mary Anne sat beside her and fumed. If the maid had been given a choice, she would have gone charging straight down the aisle the moment the first note of the recessional sounded, Marina suspected. Mary Anne had made an abortive attempt to rise, but when Marina didn’t move, she’d sat back down perching impatiently on the very edge of the pew, which couldn’t have been comfortable.

  Having gone to this sort of church all her life, however, Marina knew very well that it was no good thinking that you could get out quickly if you were in the first pew. Not a chance… not with most of the village, including all of the littlest children and the oldest of the elderly, between you and the exit. Today, with Marina Roeswood present—well, all of those people would be lingering for more long looks at the mysterious daughter of the great house.

  So she sat and waited for the aisle to clear, and only when a quick glance over her shoulder showed her that there were just a few folk left, lingering around the door, did she rise and make her leisurely way toward the rear of the church.

  And once at the door, it was time, as she had known, for another delay, which clearly infuriated Mary Anne. But it was a delay that Marina was not, under any circumstances, going to forego or cut short.

  “And you must be the young Miss Roeswood,” said the vicar—sandy-haired, bare-headed—stationed at the door to greet his parishioners as they left. He reached for her black-gloved hand, as she held it out to him. “I wish that we had gotten this first meeting under better circumstances,” he continued, fixing his brown eyes on her face in a way that suggested to her that he was slightly short-sighted. “My name is Davies, Clifton Davies.”

  “The Reverend Clifton Davies, I assume,” Marina put in, with a hint of a smile. Cornish or Welsh father, I suspect, but born on the Devon side of the border. He doesn’t have quite the lilt nor the accent.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” the vicar laughed deprecatingly. “I’m rather new in my position, and not used to being the ‘Reverend’ Davies—but the village has welcomed me beyond my expectation.”

  “So both of us are new to Oakhurst—I shan’t feel so completely the stranger,” Marina replied, and as Mary Anne smoldered, continued to make conversation with the young Mr. Davies. In no time at all she had learned that he was as fond of chess as she was—”And you must come to the vicarage to play!”—passionate about music—”Although I cannot play a note, sadly”—and unmarried. Which accounted for the amused glances of the parishioners lingering purposefully about the door. Well, those were for the most part older parishioners. She rather thought that if any of the young and unmarried women had been lingering, she wouldn’t have been getting amused glances. They would think her a rival, and a rival with advantages they would never have. If she told them that she was not, they would never believe her.

  But she was delighted to discover that Mr. Davies was well-spoken, friendly, intelligent. And the more that Marina spoke with the young vicar, the better she liked him.

  Finally Mary Anne had had enough. “Excuse me, Miss Marina, but I think I had better fetch the carriage,” the woman said, interrupting the vicar in midsentence, then pushing past her charge as the young man looked after her with a bemused glance.

  “I suppose I’ve monopolized your time unforgivably—” he began with a blush.

  “You have done no such thing,” Marina replied with warmth, then seized her chance. “Mr. Davies, I should like very much to visit you, and play for your enjoyment or have a chess game with you, but my Aunt Arachne has some very strict notions about my behavior. Please send me or us actual invitations for specific days and times, so that she cannot put me off and must either be rude and decline, or gracious and accept. Please come up to Oakhurst Manor to visit—teatime would be ideal!”

  “Forgive me, but you sound rather desperate,” the vicar said hesitantly, warily.

  “I am—for intelligent company, and conversation that isn’t confined to the few topics considered appropriate among the fashionable elite!” she said, allowing him a brief glimpse of her frustration.

  Just a flash—but Clifton Davies was not at all stupid, and very, very intuitive. She saw something like understanding in his eyes, a conspiratorial smile, and he gave her a quick nod.

  “In that case, I believe I am overdue to make a call upon your aunt—and you,” he said, with a little bow over her hand. Then he released it, and stepped back, and turned to another of his flock. It was all perfectly timed, and she turned away, hiding a smile of satisfaction, to make her way up the path to the waiting carriage and the fuming Mary Anne. Now she would have a reason to come to the village; now there would be an outsider in Oakhurst to free her from the endless round of supervision and etiquette lessons.

  And she just might start to get a decent tea now and again, with the vicar coming to call.

  “And how did you find the little vicar?” Arachne asked over luncheon—how could anyone make roast beef so bland?—with a very slight smile.

  Mary Anne told her how long I stayed talking to him, she realized at once. “I found him polite and well-spoken, who composes an intelligent sermon and delivers it admirably,” she replied casually. “And although he did not know my mother and father well, he wished to properly express his condolences and asked me to convey them to you as well, Madam. He intends to pay a call here soon, to impart them in person, and tender his respect to you and welcome you here.”

  “Ah.” Arachne gave her a measuring look. “And did he say anything else?”

  “That he plays chess and hopes that one of us will indulge him in a game,” she said truthfully. And added, “I expect that he will want one or both of us to help in church charity work. That is what my mother used to do, all the time. She used to write to me about it, pages and pages.”

  There was a spark of something in Arachne’s eyes. “Really? That surprises me. I would not have expected Hugh’s wife to be so closely concerned with
village life.”

  “She enjoyed doing it; she enjoyed being able to help people,” Marina replied. “I suppose—I should do something too, but—I don’t know what. There’s an obligation, you see, responsibilities between the house and the village. We’re responsible for a great deal of parish charity, either directly, or indirectly.” Since Arachne had not interrupted her, she assumed that this must be appropriate conversation and continued. “I’m not good with sick people—my mother used to take food and other comforts to sick people. Perhaps you should, Madam.”

  “I think that there are better uses of our time,” Arachne said, dismissively. “We can send one of the servants with such things, if the vicar wishes the custom to continue. Still… if it is the custom…”

  Marina actually got to finish her course in peace, as Arachne pondered this sudden revelation of the linking of house and village. Evidently it had not occurred to her that there could be such a thing.

  “You, I think, will be taking the responsibility of our obligation to the village,” Arachne said into the silence. “I am sure Mr. Davies will know what is best for you to do. It will give you something constructive to do with your time.”

  Since that was exactly what Marina had been hoping she would say, she simply nodded. Another reason to be out of the manor!

  “You will, of course, direct the servants to do as much as possible in your stead,” Arachne added. “The responsibility of directing them will be good for you.”

  She stifled a sigh. Oh well—I’ll still have some chances to get away from here, if not as many as I had hoped for.

  Still—still! She had gotten away, if only for the duration of the church service. She had made a friend of the vicar, and now there would be an outsider coming here. The bars of the cage were loosening, ever so slightly.